Review of The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) by Luis G — 16 Jul 2012

Though a relatively simple story (albeit true!), its a nice piece of classic cinema.

To cut a long story short, this film is an ideal sunday afternoon lazy day watch. The story itself is very endearing and inspiring, benefits enormously from the fact it is based on actual fact. Ingrid Bergman plays her part rather well, though her upper class english accent was contested by Gladys Aylward pride of being cockney! Though her acting is completly sympathetic to the movie and its a role that needed to work for this film. However, I feel the casting could have been better for the chinese and male roles, it felt that it was a tad out of place to put Robert Donat as an emperor "Mandarin". It seemed to make the film more dated than it should have been.

What impressed me most was the fact it was film in WALES!! You would never of guessed, even the chinese children were scousers haha! I think you look at the cinematography and the general direction for the film, it feels as if it could have been something like from Aguirre: Wrath of God or Fitzcarraldo, which are both my favourite films. It really has to be noted that this really improved the film for me, when I noticed just how much effort must have been put into this film.

One other minor problem is the music, its not too bad but for some reason the motif sounds like the start of the classic song "Blue Moon", its rather offputing since this motif is played every 15 mins!

I think though, this is a well constructed film that though feels a bit aged, it is a great story to tell and also to read up upon. Watch this and you won't regret it.